Comparing Orlando...

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I don't know if it happens to any of you after coming home from travels to other cities around the US, but I tend to come back depressed. I am not talking about comparing ORL to much larger cities like NY, LA , Chicago, Boston or even Atlanta...I'm taking about similarly sized cities as Orlando.

Just got back from Nashville and I was blown away at how great that city is. It is vibrant, urban, fun, historic, well heeled, educated and has a great sense of place. The food scene is great as well.

The gulch area is amazing, Midtown, the CBD, the riverfront, Edgehill, 12 South, Vandy , East Nashville and many more areas are equally unbelievable. Construction is EVERYWHERE. Not just any construction, quality projects are all over the city.

Coming back is depressing, knowing the Nashville metro is smaller than Orlando yet knowing our city will never be half as nice in our lifetime. Orlando can learn a thing or two about being a GREAT mid sized city from Nashville. Do I have faith that our leaders and developers have the same forward thinking minds? Not a chance. Hell, at this point I would be happy if DT Orlando became as nice as Chattanooga, let alone Nashville. Sorry for being pessimistic, I just don't see it with what we are force fed here are being nice and acceptable design and planning. I was born and raised here and I truly love Orlando. I will probably die here, but that doesn't mean I can't want more for this city that the mediocrity to sub-mediocrity we have been getting... I demand more damnit! Lol

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I may be able to offer some perspective here. I moved from Orlando to Charlotte in 2013. Of Charlotte's skyline is MUCH more impressive than Orlando's. And the city has two light rail lines and two streetcar lines, to boot.

Yet, I was blown away by Nashville when visiting there early 2016. It has a buzz that Charlotte lacks. In retrospect, the buzz I felt is a product of the tourism component that Charlotte lacks and of course the celebrity attached to the city.

... and after all this, I miss Orlando.

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I don't know if it happens to any of you after coming home from travels to other cities around the US, but I tend to come back depressed. I am not talking about comparing ORL to much larger cities like NY, LA , Chicago, Boston or even Atlanta...I'm taking about similarly sized cities as Orlando.

Just got back from Nashville and I was blown away at how great that city is. It is vibrant, urban, fun, historic, well heeled, educated and has a great sense of place. The food scene is great as well.

The gulch area is amazing, Midtown, the CBD, the riverfront, Edgehill, 12 South, Vandy , East Nashville and many more areas are equally unbelievable. Construction is EVERYWHERE. Not just any construction, quality projects are all over the city.

Coming back is depressing, knowing the Nashville metro is smaller than Orlando yet knowing our city will never be half as nice in our lifetime. Orlando can learn a thing or two about being a GREAT mid sized city from Nashville. Do I have faith that our leaders and developers have the same forward thinking minds? Not a chance. Hell, at this point I would be happy if DT Orlando became as nice as Chattanooga, let alone Nashville. Sorry for being pessimistic, I just don't see it with what we are force fed here are being nice and acceptable design and planning. I was born and raised here and I truly love Orlando. I will probably die here, but that doesn't mean I can't want more for this city that the mediocrity to sub-mediocrity we have been getting... I demand more damnit! Lol

I feel the same way about quite a few places like Austin, Denver and Portland. Charleston is a super-lively place, Is it even half-as-big as Orlando?

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Dale, you would be even more impressed today. There were at least 8-10 buildings under const. (all 20-30 stories) . The riverfront has been re-done and the new Conv Center DT was probably being finished when you went. I searched for homes from DT south to Belle Meade/Brentwood (about 10 miles+-) and found almost nothing under 600k. I fact the only 3 bedroom properties for around 600k were townhomes! just blew my mind the prices but also the quality of design and construction. No cookie cutter stuff. Lots of unique neighborhoods. I just wished it was Orlando.

...to your point about DT Charlotte...it IS way more impressive than ORL. So is Nashville, so is KC, Austin, Portland, etc...yet all are similar sized or smaller than the ORL metro. My question is WHY? Why are so behind everyone? Is it the education system, the low wage jobs that lead to people who cannot afford these developments? is it the city resting on its laurels? Is it city leaders not willing to push developers for better quality projects? What is it?

I'm not trying to start an Orlando bashing thread...just trying to conversation that incites CHANGE and PROGRESS. That's all...My .02

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I also wish we gave people a reason to visit DT Orlando. I wish we had our Conv Center DT instead of I-drive, Same for the Orlando Eye, Sealife Aquarium, same for the OMA or the Mennello Museum. The DPAC is a great start but we need more to make the actual city of Orlando an attraction onto itself...

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Perhaps the table is set at long last. Thought it was happening in the 90's, but it seems to have gone sideways since. That said, not only do I miss Orlando after Charlotte and Nashville, I was thrilled to be back in Orlando after having almost moved to LA early 2013.

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Dale, you would be even more impressed today. There were at least 8-10 buildings under const. (all 20-30 stories) . The riverfront has been re-done and the new Conv Center DT was probably being finished when you went. I searched for homes from DT south to Belle Meade/Brentwood (about 10 miles+-) and found almost nothing under 600k. I fact the only 3 bedroom properties for around 600k were townhomes! just blew my mind the prices but also the quality of design and construction. No cookie cutter stuff. Lots of unique neighborhoods. I just wished it was Orlando.

...to your point about DT Charlotte...it IS way more impressive than ORL. So is Nashville, so is KC, Austin, Portland, etc...yet all are similar sized or smaller than the ORL metro. My question is WHY? Why are so behind everyone? Is it the education system, the low wage jobs that lead to people who cannot afford these developments? is it the city resting on its laurels? Is it city leaders not willing to push developers for better quality projects? What is it?

I'm not trying to start an Orlando bashing thread...just trying to conversation that incites CHANGE and PROGRESS. That's all...My .02

I said it in another thread...just look at the population of the city limits, 270k. Now compare it to cities with only that much city population. Forget the metro population. This is the number that dictates so much; it tells you how large the city actually was in the 1940's, '50's, '60's, etc., compared to other cities, when trends were being set and foundations were being laid for future development. I-4 and the TNPK were placed where they were to help Orlando grow. The region grew, but the city population has grown at a snail's pace. The only annexation has been OIA and Medical City; no major swaths of populated neighborhoods.

Whether people want to acknowledge this or not (I Am Reality, namely), it may not make all that much sense when considering the metro population, but it is a true indicator when comparing Orlando to other cities of why Orlando is so behind these other cities.

13 hours ago, orlandouprise said:

I also wish we gave people a reason to visit DT Orlando. I wish we had our Conv Center DT instead of I-drive, Same for the Orlando Eye, Sealife Aquarium, same for the OMA or the Mennello Museum. The DPAC is a great start but we need more to make the actual city of Orlando an attraction onto itself...

Very good points. Take Chicago...all of those categories of things you mentioned are in downtown (except for MOSI). And, downtown Chicago IS the attraction. Skyscrapers; observatories; world renowned art and sculptures; etc. Orlando is so decentralized, that we are lucky it does have what it has downtown.

But this goes back to my earlier point. Chicago was huge back at the turn of the century over 100 years ago. Orlando was a queef back then.

Edited March 26 by jrs2

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I said it in another thread...just look at the population of the city limits, 270k. Now compare it to cities with only that much city population. Forget the metro population. This is the number that dictates so much; it tells you how large the city actually was in the 1940's, '50's, '60's, etc., compared to other cities, when trends were being set and foundations were being laid for future development. I-4 and the TNPK were placed where they were to help Orlando grow. The region grew, but the city population has grown at a snail's pace. The only annexation has been OIA and Medical City; no major swaths of populated neighborhoods.

Whether people want to acknowledge this or not (I Am Reality, namely), it may not make all that much sense when considering the metro population, but it is a true indicator when comparing Orlando to other cities of why Orlando is so behind these other cities.

Very good points. Take Chicago...all of those categories of things you mentioned are in downtown (except for MOSI). And, downtown Chicago IS the attraction. Skyscrapers; observatories; world renowned art and sculptures; etc. Orlando is so decentralized, that we are lucky it does have what it has downtown.

But this goes back to my earlier point. Chicago was huge back at the turn of the century over 100 years ago. Orlando was a queef back then.

Show me one economic-indicator that only considers business within a city's borders (and not MSA).

Typical cities have a good % of people who commute into their city jobs.

Many people working in those new buildings in Nashville, or Charlotte or Chicago don't live in the city-center.

They are part of the MSA but not the city population.

That's just the way things work.

You see sprawl in Orlando as symptomatic of larger problem.

I argue sprawl (and lack of high-wage jobs) ARE the problem in Orlando. That is why downtown is not built up more.

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Show me one economic-indicator that only considers business within a city's borders (and not MSA).

Typical cities have a good % of people who commute into their city jobs.

Many people working in those new buildings in Nashville, or Charlotte or Chicago don't live in the city-center.

They are part of the MSA but not the city population.

That's just the way things work.

You see sprawl in Orlando as symptomatic of larger problem.

I argue sprawl (and lack of high-wage jobs) ARE the problem in Orlando. That is why downtown is not built up more.

Atlanta is the King of sprawl; so is Phoenix. And they both have larger downtowns than Orlando and their city limits populations are also much larger than Orlando.

Chicago is a bad example for the point you are making because, historically, Chicago has led most other cities in having a rather larger downtown residential population. No other city compares except for Manhattan.

Forget the economic indicator studies. Just look at what's happened in practice. Do a comparison. Don't argue, just do it and you'll see I'm right on this. I'll do it for you:

Jacksonville, Louisville, New Orleans, Nashville, Charlotte maybe (MSA similar or smaller), Pitt, etc. All of the cities that have a greater city population (with similar or smaller MSA's) are more developed in their downtowns than Orlando. It probably follows that being larger years ago attracted or created higher paying jobs in those cities when Orlando was very small. Whatever the order is, the city population dictates a lot in this regard- way more than MSA size, which is misleading and makes a city look larger than it actually is in practice.

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Good to see he's still droning on and on and on fighting the same battle to nowhere. You have to love consistency. I'm reminded of Vizzini from The Princess Bride and his battle of wits where he self-identified as the smartest man on Earth.

Hank has responded to about 6 of my posts since he said he is ignoring me.

Am I going to have to pull a Rodney King here (can't we all just get along?)?

Listen, not arguing here, but it's true. It is. City population dictates this. Why can't you see that? City populations and the correlation with downtown development don't lie. It's all there. Just look.

I get what you're saying about how they use MSA data, but that is not what is happening in practice.

Ok, so the city to city data doesn't exist, as you stated, so in lieu of that, just look at the factors that I pointed to again and again and there's your answer.

I can't speak for Hank. But I saw Alice Cooper this weekend and I am still giddy from that show and in a fantastic mood after seeing him taken to the gallows. Brilliant! Bravo!

Edited March 26 by jrs2

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Am I going to have to pull a Rodney King here (can't we all just get along?)?

Listen, not arguing here, but it's true. It is. City population dictates this. Why can't you see that? City populations and the correlation with downtown development don't lie. It's all there. Just look.

I get what you're saying about how they use MSA data, but that is not what is happening in practice.

Ok, so the city to city data doesn't exist, as you stated, so in lieu of that, just look at the factors that I pointed to again and again and there's your answer.

I can't speak for Hank. But I saw Alice Cooper this weekend and I am still giddy from that show and in a fantastic mood after seeing him taken to the gallows. Brilliant! Bravo!

I honestly don't think you are arguing. I consider this a pretty high-level discussion.

As for MSA...it is insanely HELPFUL for Orlando that MSA is the unit of measurement most often used.

If Orlando is #22 for startup activity (based on MSA), it likely wouldnt be in the Top 100 if city-border data is somehow used.

If Orlando is Top 10 in job growth or population growth, those numbers would surely go DOWN if city-border data is somehow used.

If I were Orlando, I would BEG statisticians to use MSA. If I were Jacksonville, I would beg statistians to use city-border data (if possible).

Also, the city-border population of Orlando is now almost 400k, based on the Sentinel article about the latest census.

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This is a fun topic for me because I lived in Nashville for 4 years. It's important to note a couple of things:

(1) Nashville is 100 years older than Orlando (President Andrew Jackson, whose home The Hermitage - way out in the Nashville 'burbs btw - was president from 1829-37, almost 40 years before we existed,) so a bit of a head start;

(2) Because it's the state capital, Downtown Nashville always had the employees of the state government to keep it afloat when downtowns were falling out of favor across America from the 1950's-1970's (not coincidentally, that's when Orlando' s great period of growth was beginning, at the very time there was zero interest in downtowns);

(3) Despite that, Nashville still lost two of its biggest employers downtown, L&C and NLT, along with its major local banks in the 1980's (the NLT Tower, still one of the larger buildings downtown, is now occupied by the State);

(4) I attended a meeting of the Nashville Chamber in the 1980's where there was a great hue and cry as to why they couldn't grow like... Orlando!

(5) The Grand Ole Opry moved out of downtown in the 1970's to the site of the Opryland theme park (it didn't make it, which to this day means Nashville loses a lot of its tourism business to Dollywood and the millions of dollars annually that could remain in the local economy);

(6) Thankfully, just as Orlando rediscovered its downtown, when there was horror expressed that the Ryman Auditorium might be permanently closed, or worse, torn down, the Opry moved back for some performances, jump-starting the tourism/convention business downtown;

(7) A big debate going on when I was there was whether Nashville should be promoted as "Music City". This was a horror to the Vandy/Belle Meade crowd who had always looked down their noses at the country music crowd which was the very thing the rest of the country thought made Nashville unique. In Orlando, we see the same thing with the "downtown crowd," who think our world-class theme parks and the opportunities for upward mobility they create for tens of thousands are somehow beneath contempt. (I say this having straddled the fence as a downtown resident for over 25 years and having worked for pillars of the downtown establishment like the Stuarts even as I came from humble citrus worker roots in West Orange.)

(8) Interestingly, what made Nashville take off in the 1990's and after was not downtown: it was the Bridgestone/Nissan plants out in Rutherford County and the sweepstakes it won (the HQ2 contest of its day) for GM's Saturn plant in Spring Hill.

I should say I loved Nashville but for a Florida boy the weather was a pain (temps well over 100 in the summer - no ocean breezes - and cold from November-March but with not enough snow to allow the landscape to look anything other than dead.)

The people were very friendly, but 'tho Nashville is more progressive than the rest of Tennessee (which has lurched so far to the right as to make FOX News blush), it still can't approach the built in diversity Orlando has come to champion (one example: on HRC's Municipal Equality Index, Orlando has a perfect 100; Nashville a meh 60.)

As far as amenities, it's well balanced: Nashville wins for music while we do better with local theater and Fringe; they have NFL but we have NBA and MLS; we tend to be stronger on the visual arts; Vandy is a better-respected private school than Rollins (although the Rollins campus is so much more attractive than Vandy) but UCF has come much further in 50 years than TSU or MTSU have in 100.

The bottom line for me was, ironically, downtown. Our close-in neighborhoods like Thornton Park and Eola Heights have much better pedestrian access to downtown than any of Nashville's neighborhoods, due to the river, the 265 loop and urban renewal "slum clearance" in the 50s and 60s. When I left, East Nashville wasn't a thing (I worked for a while in an office at the old Genesco plant on Main St but gentrification had not arrived); I'm especially glad to see that. Also, I had to live without Publix for four years; that too, is no longer the case.

Both cities in the end have much to be proud of but I don't regret my choice to come back home.

4

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Downtown Nashville is currently awash with cranes. It's like a little Dubai. That said, a scant five or six years ago it was nothing to write home about. It's a testament to how quickly things can change (cue: Orlando).

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I honestly don't think you are arguing. I consider this a pretty high-level discussion.

As for MSA...it is insanely HELPFUL for Orlando that MSA is the unit of measurement most often used.

If Orlando is #22 for startup activity (based on MSA), it likely wouldnt be in the Top 100 if city-border data is somehow used.

If Orlando is Top 10 in job growth or population growth, those numbers would surely go DOWN if city-border data is somehow used.

If I were Orlando, I would BEG statisticians to use MSA. If I were Jacksonville, I would beg statistians to use city-border data (if possible).

Also, the city-border population of Orlando is now almost 400k, based on the Sentinel article about the latest census.

I just Googled it: 277k Orlando 2016 numbers. Is there a newer number than that? I've never heard of Orlando having broken the 300k threshold.

I thought the discussion was how developed the downtowns were of these different cities, not this other stuff. I agree about Orlando using MSA numbers.

1 hour ago, Dale said:

Downtown Nashville is currently awash with cranes. It's like a little Dubai. That said, a scant five or six years ago it was nothing to write home about. It's a testament to how quickly things can change (cue: Orlando).

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I can't speak for Hank. But I saw Alice Cooper this weekend and I am still giddy from that show and in a fantastic mood after seeing him taken to the gallows. Brilliant! Bravo!

I can tell you that I learned a lot of the history of the city of Milwaukee from Alice Cooper. I'm not sure how that compares to Orlando, but maybe if we just had Alice Cooper to talk about the history of Orlando there were be a little more harmony here.

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You pretty much have to use MSA numbers. I can't imagine a scenario where it would make sense to include Belle Meade with Nashville or Ortega with Jacksonville but exclude Winter Park from Orlando, as an example, even though WP is closer to downtown Orlando than those other suburbs are to their downtowns.

It becomes even more significant if you know that consolidation of Duval and Davidson counties was influenced by segregation issues.

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You pretty much have to use MSA numbers. I can't imagine a scenario where it would make sense to include Belle Meade with Nashville or Ortega with Jacksonville but exclude Winter Park from Orlando, as an example, even though WP is closer to downtown Orlando than those other suburbs are to their downtowns.

It becomes even more significant if you know that consolidation of Duval and Davidson counties was influenced by segregation issues.

Another great example from HankStrong: Milwaukee. 594k city and 1.5M MSA.

I think you get what my point is; that the larger the "city" population is now, or has been for decades upon decades, that this dictates how developed or large the downtown will be, and not necessarily the MSA numbers. There's just way too many examples of this. And I think historically a larger city proper population almost always dictated how large that city was. They didn't start referring to cities by their MSA until some time in the 1990's. Before then, they would say the population of New York was 7M, Chicago, 2.7M, LA, 3.4M, Houston 1M, Philly 1M, and so on.

This goes back to my original point as to why Orlando wasn't considered seriously for HQ2: because it's not that big to begin with compared to other cities in the running with similar MSA population size (like Charlotte). It reflects in the number of major companies downtown and number of high paying jobs downtown and reflects how that city is perceived as a major business center nationally.